[Cryptography] Bitcoin Royale: Peer-to-Peer No-Theft Electronic Gold

[Phillip Hallam-Baker]

On Thu, Aug 29, 2019 at 1:11 AM Ian Duoteli Fleming via cryptography <
cryptography at metzdowd.com> wrote:

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> Bitcoin Royale is a protocol based on Bitcoin focused on a specific goal -
> designing the best store of value and addressing the problem of theft.
>
> GitHub project: https://github.com/bitcoinroyale
> Design paper: https://bitcoinroyale.github.io/bitcoinroyale.pdf
>
> Some overview:
>
> Satoshi Nakamoto’s original vision for Bitcoin was to create a
> peer-to-peer version of electronic cash. The majority of successful forks
> of the protocol try to improve on this vision further and provide a more
> scalable and efficient system for payments. ...
>

Yet another payments proposal that misses the point:

People were using payment systems long before cryptographic systems were
developed. Payments are a social construct first and foremost. The role
that cryptography can play in any such system is really very small.

The first thing that any system has to get right is the social constructs
and the idea that any scheme can provide a 'long term store of value;
before it can solve the problem of paying for cups of coffee is utterly
fantastical.

I have been tracing crypto-currency payment schemes since I wrote the
survey paper while I was at MIT 24 years ago and the field hasn't moved
since. Proof of work is an application of the peppercoin scheme Adi Shamir
developed with Ron Rivest. Blockchain is the Haber-Stornetta hash chain
notary.

The only thing that has changed in all that time is that we have moved from
the store of value moving from the promise that someone has chunks of gold
in escrow to the promise that if we all clap our hands and say we believe
in tinkerbell, we all become rich.

Ten years on, BitCoin still defends itself from all criticism with the bald
statement that it is early days and nobody can know how the system will
adapt to meet the challenges. That is total hogwash. We know how the system
will adapt because we have been watching for ten years - it won't adapt at
all.

Ten years after the financial crash, BitCoiners still splutter about the
corruption of the global financial system while the BitCoin float is stolen
over and over again. Fraud accounts for much less than 1% of actual value
transfers in real world payment systems. Actual value transfers account for
much less than 1% of the fraud in the BitCoin system.

Ten years ago, the largest online retailer of note to accept BitCoin for
payments was Overstock.com. Ten years later the largest online retailer of
note that accepts BitCoin for payments is Overstock.com. And they will be
dropping BitCoin in the coming months as the CEO has had to resign after
having an affair with a woman now in jail for being a Russian spy and then
posting bizarre rants about the deep state.

Give it up folks, BitCoin has a carbon footprint that is ridiculous and as
soon as Cheto Christ is out of the White House, the war on carbon is going
to be the best way that the US and the UK have to get back at Putin. The
value of BitCoin depends on the hope that it is possible to redeem large
numbers of Tethers at par. If Tether is a fakecoin, it is game over for
BitCoin and game over for every other crypto currency. And like Trump, the
one thing BitFinex will never ever do is to allow a forensic audit of their
accounts.
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